This illustration shows a cavalry procession from a tomb mural at Jiayuguan in Gansu, of Three Kingdoms (Wei) or Western Jin date. The illustration is from Albert Dien, “The Stirrup and its Effect on Chinese Military History”, Ars Orientalis XVI (1986).



The picture's not very clear, so in case it helps, this is a drawing I made years ago of part of the scene, copied from another photograph:



A very small colour version of the painting is online at http://www.gsei.com.cn/lvyou/jindian/jiayuguan/default.htm

Now, most of the cavalry clearly wear splint helmets and scale body-armour, and many of you will recognise this painting as one of the sources for the Three Kingdoms cavalry in Chris Peers' Osprey Imperial Chinese Armies (1), plate E1, and also in Liu Yonghua's Ancient Chinese Armour (page 49). At the very head of the procession is an unarmoured figure, perhaps an official, followed by three more such unarmoured figures.

But the figures I am interested in are these two:



What are they wearing? Both have short, roughly hip-length, red garments with elbow-length sleeves - the forearms are white, presumably representing a garment worn under the red one - and possibly high collars. This is about the same "cut" as Han iron lamellar armour. Could these garments be red leather lamellar armours? Or some sort of cloth-covered armour? At the hem of one rider's garment I can see - in some photos, at least! - some short vertical lines that might mark armour lamellae (though if so, why are they on the edge only?) or a decorative border.

Any ideas? Any parallels to this garment from around the same period?

cheers,
Duncan

Sorry for missing this thread earlier. The 'scale' armour on the cavalry is usually recognized as tongxiu jia, which is a kind of lamellar suit that has tight sleeves extending to the elbows. As for the two riders you circled, they appear to be staff officers who are wearing caps and not helmets, even though one of them is carrying a lance and a bow (the other has only a horsewhip). There are a few possibilities:

1) They are wearing tongxiu jia that is covered with cloth

2) They are wearing tongxiu jia but the lamellae are not drawn in

3) They are not wearing armour, just a white sleeved garment with a red vest over it

4) The one with the horsewhip is unarmoured, but the one with the lance and bow is

I find it unlikely that they are wearing leather armour, because there is little reason for higher-ranking officers to be wearing lower-quality armour than regular cavalrymen.

There's links to larger, color photographs of the murals that may help you out here on this thread:

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php...dpost&p=4692269

Thanks for the link, Wu Tao, I'd missed that. Can't say that the pictures add much new information, though.

Thanks also to Yun. I think you've identified the possible interpretations - just hard to say which one is likely to be the best! Nobody knows of any parallels from a similar period?

cheers,
Duncan